The transitive use (mid-13c.) supplanted Middle English sench (cf. drink/drench) which died out 14c. Related: Sank; sunk; sinking. Sinking fund is from 1724. Adjective phrase sink or swim is from 1660s. To sink without a trace is World War I military jargon, translating German spurlos versenkt.

Example Sentences for sunken

Now, she was sunken in an apathy that saved her from the worst pangs of misery.

This chapel was one of the most sunken and dark of the old Romanesque apse.

HE was a tall, thin personage, with a marked brow and a sunken eye.

So sunken and suppressed it was, that it was like a voice underground.

Even in its sunken wrecks might be read the record of modern nations.

Man, but your face is pale and your bonnie eyes are that sunken.

He considered the corsair a moment with his sunken smouldering eyes.

His step was uncertain, his eyes were sunken and his hand trembled.

There was a sunken runway leading into an underground hangar.

I took his hand in mine, but it was cold and clammy; his features were sunken too—he had fainted.